I've finished Infamous Second Son on the PS4 which was something of a surprise as I expected it to be terrible but it was fairly good keeping many of the free roaming elements from the first game as it's fun to wander an open world city and track down side missions, collectibles etc. Admittedly overall it's nowhere near as good as either of the first two games, in particular I'd say Infamous was favourite PS3 game for the polished gameplay and that incredible ending while Second Son feels more like a big DLC - there's a lot less missions and stuff to do, there's less variety in the enemies, the characters are mostly just annoying, the story is rubbish and it brings in stupid pointless motion controls at times similar to the Wiimote. How the game exists at all after the events of Infamous 2 is quietly ignored.

Annoyingly they haven't made any effort to improve on weak areas from the previous games so the dodgy karma system is back where you're either a perfect hero or a total asshole with no in between forcing you to play the game twice to see it all although there's even less difference between the two this time. The boss fights are worse in that they're just colossal bullet sponges that feel like you're using a pea shooter to bring their health down which is a real shame given the awesome range of powers you have which give so much potential.

Still given it's cheap these days I'd still recommend it for Infamous fans as I've still enjoyed playing it plus it's cheap to pick up now, kind of tempted to play through the PS3 games again now.

John

We are outnumbered by enemy titans, recommend aggressive sustained counterfire

I did like the way the graffiti sections were handled, shaking the controller like a spray can and the built in speaker giving you the rattle noise was a fun little diversion (that's not the word I wanted to use but I can't for the life of me remember the one I actually want) the first half dozen times. Just a shame there is nearly 30 of them.

There is a standalone DLC that covers the story of the neon girl, which was free on PS+ last year some time. I've not played it, looks like more of the same though.

I didn't like the graffiti secctions, that sort of stuff is the token rubbish that used to be so annoying on the Wiimote. I was considering doing it on expert and evil but may leave it until later, I'd forgotten about the DLC though so will have a look to see if that's worth a go.

I've bought and finished Ori and the Blind Forest Definitive Edition on normal with 100% of the items, this is a slightly tweaked version of the original Ori and the Blind Forest with a little more content and some tweaks to the main game. It counts as a separate games so saves don't transfer and the achievements are separate as well although owners of the original game can get the new version at a discount, currently it costs £4. In terms of new content there's a slightly longer intro to give it a little more story (I think), there's one new area, two new moves and some tweaks to the existing game primarily that unlike the original game you can now go back to some areas that were locked out after you'd completed them like the Ginso tree. A word of warning, they've changed some of the secret doors (or added these ones) in the existing map to be triggered by one of the new moves not by hitting a hidden trigger - I spent a while looking then gave up and found out later that I needed this move.

In terms of whether it's worth with it, I'm not really sure as the release doesn't make much sense to me. Yes it's good to go back and tidy up the game but the changes are minor and I can't see that anyone who didn't like the original game will like this one and for experienced players who did like the first game I think will be disappointed by the fact there's little new content. The new section is certainly well done and I thought it was great to play but really wanted more, as in the original it's a little frustrating that when you're fully powered up with a fantastic array of moves there's nothing you need to actually use them for. For £4 I don't regret it but I loved playing the new stuff so much I was left really wanting more content.

John

We are outnumbered by enemy titans, recommend aggressive sustained counterfire

Just finished up The Order: 1886, it was slated on released which I sort of understand as its short and not particularly varied but I enjoyed it, the story is pretty good, not amazing by any stretch but good enough to set up a sequel and an interesting world.

It's only around eight hours to go 100% on normal and that's a fairly slow run, there's a harder difficulty and a ridiculous one life mode which people aren't just managing to finish but competing on time. I think the game is fine on normal though so won't be bothering with the higher difficulties

John

We are outnumbered by enemy titans, recommend aggressive sustained counterfire

Finished XCom 2 last night. It was a good journey, but I was up to 54 hours, so felt it was about time it ended. There was a bit more of a story to this one, but it's the gameplay that I enjoyed once again.

Been on a bit of a clean up the past few weeks finishing off games I'm right at the end of.

The Order 1886 - Very pretty looking game, combat is a little vague, story is okay but ends as its getting going, mainly a story about werewolves, but drops a vampire conspiracy in for one level then switches back to werewolves and never mentions it again. Would be interested in playing a sequel.

Rise of the Tomb Raider - Another very pretty game, very similar to the 2013 reboot, still lacking in "tombs" to "raid" and the 10ish there are are very simple single puzzle things. Reasonable story but a lot of the back story is in annoying audio logs scattered all over.

Witcher 3 - Enjoyable early on, but far too long if you do all the side missions. Really couldn't careless in the last few hours ended up skipping loads of the dialogue. I've got the DLC to play now but might give that a miss for a while.

Fallout 4 - One of the more disappointing games I've played for a long time, lacking the depth of 3 and New Vegas with all missions being a variant of go to A kill all the people and maybe bring me a McGuffin. All the factions are terrible, and none of the end game choices are satisfying. Not that bothered about going back to it but I have the season pass so will play through the DLC.

I've mostly finished the new Doom (completed it on normal, unlocked and upgraded all the stuff and secrets) and like most reviews have said, it's a surprisingly good game doing a decent job of being a new game in its own right but keeping the feel of the old Doom games. Rather than go with the classic Doom/Painkiller/Serious Sam gameplay, they've opted to go for more Unreal Tournament/Quake 3 Arena as a lot of the combat takes part in sealed off areas where you're left with no cover and have to keep moving fast. The enemies are much faster as well and instead of sitting back and lobbing fireballs while slowly working towards you they'll instead run straight at you or run up columns, jump up platforms etc.

You have little health and will quickly die if you take too many hits so 'glory kills' are crucial, once the enemy is weakened they'll be stunned and you can hit the melee button to brutally kill them and regain health and armour in the process. These are the sort of things that get tiresome quickly but they've sped them up considerably so they don't take long and give you a quick break in the hectic action. The enemies all look great and most of them are from the original Doom games but easily recognisable unlike Doom 3 where they all looked much the same but different sizes. The imps for example rather than just launch their fireballs you see them holding their hand up, summon the hell energy into a little vortex and then lob it as an arcing projectile.

Most of the original Doom weapons are back although the chaingun gets redesignated as a heavy weapon and a heavy assault rifle takes the place as a standard bullet rifle, there's also a new gauss rifle. Each weapon gets two alternate fire modes though so the shotguns gets a triple fire mode and a grenade mode (both take time to recharge) and it makes for a good variety in weapons - as a Hell Knight charges towards you then you can stun them with the plasma rifle, back up and give them a barrage of missiles from the assault rifle and as the hell knight closes in you can then give it a triple blast from the shotgun. The weapons have been largely equalised though so the plasma rifle and rocket launcher both feel quite weak to their previous versions whereas the shotgun with its triple fire mode can tear chunks out of enemies at close range. The detailing on the weapons is superb though as you can see each mod attached and it functioning as you use it, the triple fire mode on the shotgun has a triple set of amber lights which go in sequence as you charge it while the assault rifle has a mini missile rack on the side and the missiles click up into position and then go green when ready to fire. The gauss rifle is one of favourites though, its main weapon fires a charged burst with a lot of power but slow shot to shot times, one of its mods gives a precision charge up shot but the siege mode is even more vicious. It takes a few seconds to charge during which time the middle of the weapon slides open allowing the frontal prongs to slide forward and then open outwards to generate a charge across them and when it's ready to fire you can't move (and only slowly when fully upgraded) - when the shot is fired its bonus is that it fires straight through enemies, blowing spectacular holes in them, or blowing limbs clean off or in some cases cleaving a hell knight or similar in half but also the beam leaves a shock wave which vaporises any smaller enemies near it.

The story is a direct sequel to Doom 2 although I won't explain why as I like how they've managed that, you're back on Mars and by now they feel they're starting to get a lid on Hell and are using it to extract raw power and also taking demons back to Mars to experiment with them as potential weapons. They've made a good effort to try and explain each of the demons and now Demonic incursions are more expected and they're more prepared for them. The general look of the game is similar to Doom 3 but not as dark and more varied, Hell in particular looks impressive as it feels like it's the hell for many other cultures and species. The end credits show this all off and on of my favourite credits sequences. There's tons of easter eggs although mostly fairly subtle unlike many games which kind of shove them in you face to show how cool they are. The main story isn't that long and has been criticised for being too short but I think it's a good length particularly as there's a lot of replay value, on each level there's weapon upgrade points for completing challenges, finding secrets, there's upgrade systems for each weapons mod, two different sets of upgrade systems for your armour and another separate upgrade system for abilities as well so I ended up playing through again after.

I'm not sure I'm going to bother playing on the higher difficulty level as the combat can get a little annoying at times as they enemies do even more damage making glory kills more critical and it's easy to get killed when an Imp just happens to catch you when you're getting attacked by many other enemies.

Definitely recommended though, really impressed what they've done with it and a fun game to play.

John

We are outnumbered by enemy titans, recommend aggressive sustained counterfire

It's a shame the DLC and focus on Doom has been multiplayer and I don't think there's any single player DLC on the way, the game isn't that long but I don't feel short changed as I enjoyed the game that much.

I've just finished Mad Max and almost reached 100% which is unusual for me, clocking up 55 hours to get there. The game is a cross between GTA and Borderlands putting you in a an open and rather desolate world populated by enemy camps, ally strongholds, roaming convoys and scavenging locations. What I particularly like is that the story missions feel a more minor side of the game and you're largely able to wander the land as you want and do the sort of activities yo'u're in the mood for, I dislike GTA V particularly for doing it the other way round and forcing you into long, dull and badly written missions that just don't take advantage of the open world at all. As you progressively work through clearing up the map you earn materials and ranks which allow you to upgrade your car and your own skills. There's also a noticeable progression as your car gets more upgraded and your allied strongholds start off quite barren but the more you clear the threats in the area, the busier they get and look more lived in plus the people there go from being wary of you to cheering you on, it's quite subtly done and works well.

The core car combat also works well as you have a variety of different weapons and you've choices how you develop your car as well, if you want you can strap on huge battering ram and bulk up the armour to make a real tank of a car or you can strip it right down to make a nippy, agile car. There's no penalty for changing your car spec either so you can change it around to suit whatever you feel like. There's no one way to take down enemy cars either so you can take different approaches such as grinding the cars with spikes on the wheels, ram into the cars, use the harpoon to pull armour or parts off the car, use the shotgun to hit vulnerable points or shoot explosives at them.

There are a lot of annoying aspects, the combat on the ground out of the car is terrible and takes up a large part of the game, your sidekick is very irritating and some of the story missions are not well designed. The main issue though is there's simply nothing to do for the end of the game, once you're fully powered up all you can really do is drive to scavenging locations, occasionally kill a few guys and find a few items hidden there. As you clear up the map it means there's much less enemies but the catch is that at the end of the game when you're fully powered up and much more capable of taking on enemies, there's hardly any around. It would be good to see spontaneous events such as camps you've captured being retaken and have to defend them or new powerful convoys that have to be stopped.

John

We are outnumbered by enemy titans, recommend aggressive sustained counterfire

I've been hunting through my Steam library to find something to get into after finishing Mad Max.

First up I've finished Roundabout which is a weird game, you play a limo driver but the whole car rotates constantly and the gameplay is trying to thread the spinning car through a normal environment similar to some of the puzzle games. To thread it together the game has a lot of FMV which is done in a 70's cheesy so bad it's meant to be good style but it's pretty terrible. The main game mechanic never clicked with me and was just irritating as well as even after spending a bit of time with it the car seemed to still snag on a lot of obstacles and never really flowed at all.

On the other hand Thomas Was Alone was a fantastic experience although at the start it doesn't seem anything special and perhaps wouldn't have persevered with it had I not been given a strong recommendation for it. The game has a very simple 2D style where you control various rectangles with different abilities to get them to the end, the story is that each of the rectangles is an AI and they're trying to make sense of their world. The game gives each of the rectangles a name (starting with Thomas who think he's the only AI) and has Stanley Parable like narration going through the game talking about the rectangles as if they're real people each with their own distinct personalities even though in the game they don't do much more than move and jump. The goal for each level is to get each of the rectangles to their own finishing slot and usually involves using each of the abilities together to get them all through.

The game is really well polished and it avoids some of the common indie puzzle game designs, I was expecting the difficulty to quickly ramp up and get frustrating but it never does nor are you badly punished for killing rectangles, there's no time limits, score or anything like that (aside from a collectible on each level) and the levels manage a decent amount of variety. It's a short game as it only lasted around three and a half hours but it feels the right length for the game, it maintains a very smooth learning curve and the presentation and audio are all excellent, the narration and story are surprisingly good for what are just a few coloured shapes.

John

We are outnumbered by enemy titans, recommend aggressive sustained counterfire

Also on the FMV theme I've finished the excellent Her Story - the entire game has you sat at what appears to be a police database with access to clips from interviews with a lady. Most of the clips are very short and the only way you can find them is to enter search terms and try to stitch the story together, to begin with you're given five clips which show the lady being upset her husband is missing, shocked she's been accused as a suspect through to admitting the crime (this isn't the spoiler it sounds like it is). The look and the feel of the game is done well as it's set in 1994 so the developer converted the video to VHS and then used the output for the game to give it an authentic feel, as you tap in your search terms you get a nice clicky IBM M series noise and as the PC chugs to return your results you get the old fashioned HD noise.

That on its own isn't enough and what makes the game is a well thought story which I found myself quickly keen to try and unravel with lots of really clever touches and little details. It's not particularly long or complicated but it feels about the right length as I think it would start to get annoying if it was much longer.

John

We are outnumbered by enemy titans, recommend aggressive sustained counterfire

Been working on my backlog/pile of shame from the last 2 years for the majority of this year. So far I have completed:

Fallout 4 : Had the last bits of the DLC to complete, was fine, prefer New Vegas. Couple of annoying grindy achievements that spoilt the end a little.Mafia 3 : Really good story, spoilt by repetitive and unfulfilling game play, liked the ending. Very sweary.The Turing Test : An FPS puzzle game, not difficult, liked the story, generally a relaxing few hours.The Witness : An FPS puzzle game, too difficult, no story, not very relaxing. Had been too long since I last played it so the majority of the last bit of play was with a guide.Wolfenstein 2 : Think I already mentioned this, great story, average game play, weirdly hard.Mario Odyssey : It's fine, still got the very last bit to do don't think I can be bothered as it seems to be a long technical level and I hate the controls.Assassins Creed Origins : It's Assassins Creed in Egypt, does what it says on the tin. Best Assassins Creed for a while.South Park the Fractured But Whole : Not as good or clever as Stick of Truth, overly long, annoyingly offensive.Steamworld Dig 2 : Not as focused as the original, little bit more metroidvania, would rather have a Steamworld Heist sequel but I guess that's coming.

Still got at least 34 games to finish, that I own, a lot of which I've not even started and are long so I guess my completion rate will start to drop soon.